Businessweek
Historic New York Barns Are Ending Up in Japan and New Zealand
Rustic American farm buildings, scouted out by Heritage Restorations, are rebuilt far away as showplace homes and event spaces.
A Telluride, Colo., ski home converted from a New York Dutch barn built in about 1770.
Photographer: Geoffrey Lyon
Last winter, Ken Zinssar and his brother were working on a car in a wing of the old barn they’d turned into a weekend auto shop. Suddenly, they heard a loud bang, and the structure was beginning to shake.
A main corner post of the barn, which was built around 1780 in New York’s upstate Schoharie County, had snapped. Zinssar and his wife, Doreen, realized they couldn’t keep the place up, so they called Heritage Restorations and said they were ready to sell. “There’s a little pang, but it’s going to collapse otherwise,” Ken says. Doreen adds: “We’re excited to see it go have a new life.”